Yolk

Monday Catch Up Post (and quotes!)

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie: “Rabbits eat vegetables, like grass, carrots, raisins…”
Me: “I didn’t know you knew so much about rabbits!”
Evie: “I kept it to myself.”

Evie: “Does an ant have 8 legs, like a spider?”

I’m very proud of my smart girl!

Evie, trying some food at a restaurant: “Mommies and Daddies say it’s yummy, but big girls say it’s yucky.”

Last week, Evie took another stab at high theater, when Sara took her to see a play of her current favorite story, Pinocchio. It was a disaster. Complete 180 from the first play. She started freaking out as soon as the lights went down and refused to go back into the theater. Her main complaint was that Pinocchio was “big, not little”, i.e. played by an adult, not a child. I think it will be a while before we give plays another try.

On Sunday, we took the train in to the Art Institute of Chicago, for “Free February”. Sara and I wanted to check out the new Modern Wing that opened up last May. I was a little nervous about how Evie was going to do at a museum that was not hands-on, but she did pretty good. Obviously, when you’re going with a kid, you have to sort of present things in a certain way. Like, “Ohh, look, horses!” Or like, find the things that she would be into. She seemed to really dig the modern art! She liked the idea that we could look at it and decide what we thought it looked like. She even sat on the floor and examined a few for a while. Afterwards, we found some children’s art activities in the basement, and Evie enjoyed them so well, that she didn’t want to leave.

Naturally, we managed to get in a trip to Yolk while we were in that neck of the woods.

We also managed to hit up a new (for us) restaurant in Chinatown, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post tomorrow

Me: ::Throwing a long, beautiful, arching snowball and nailing Evie in the legs::
Evie, excitedly: “Good job daddy!!”

What can I say, it was a beautiful throw?

The Bongo Room

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Over the weekend we found yet another amazing breakfast place, the Bongo Room. We knew about this place and had wanted to try it out for some time, so we finally gave it a go. The thing is, it’s just around the corner from our other favorite breakfast place, Yolk. The first time we just sort of flipped a coin between the two and ended up going to Yolk. It was so good, we never really had a reason to look for another place.

So you can’t help comparing the two places. The thing is, it turns out it’s not really as much of a head to head competition as you might have expected.  Although they both serve breakfast, Yolk has more choices in the savory department (like egg-based things) and the Bongo Room has more choices in the cake-y department (like pancakes).

The things that we had at the Bongo Room certainly were amazing. Sara had an apple French toast with crushed up ginger snaps on top. I had red velvet pancakes with a white chocolate sauce. It was basically like eating a cake for breakfast! The interesting thing was that 3 of us independently made the comment that, although our food looked really decadent, it wasn’t too sweet. That is, it was plenty sweet, but not to where you were thinking, “I can’t eat all of this” (although it should be noted that I could not, in fact, eat all of it). There were also plenty of choices that looked good that I wasn’t able to order, so future visits should not be a problem.

The Bongo Room is much smaller, with nowhere really to wait. I imagine it could be hard to get in at times. We’ve had to wait for awhile at Yolk, but it is a huge place, with plenty of waiting room.

So, at the end of the day, I highly recommend either place. I guarantee you will not be disappointed! As to deciding between the two, it would depend on what you are in the mood for. For savory, I’d still go with Yolk, but for sweet, choose the Bongo Room.

Halloween – everything we hoped and more

/ Shane / 2 Comments

It was a good weekend. Evie really got into the Halloween experience. I wasn’t sure if she was going to be a little too young to understand or appreciate things, but I don’t think she was. She was a little shy with saying “Trick-or-treat!” and she often forgot to say, “Thank you!” or she would mumble it to Sara or I after she had already turned away. But she caught on really quick to holding her bucket up and getting a piece of candy.

We went to a certain street in our neighborhood that is known to be a little crazy about Halloween, drawing people from all over the city. Every story I heard about the place was totally true, and we were done by 5:30. I can only imagine how crazy it would be by 6:30 or 7. My mom kept saying, “This is like a movie!” It was pretty crazy, but it was a lot of fun to be around so many people who were really into the spirit of things. There were lots of displays in yards, people dressed up, and spooky decorations, but these people really took it to the next level. One of my favorite things was a giant spider rigged 20 feet overhead with a pulley system, so it could drop down on unsuspecting people. I also remember a giant plastic knife that was rigged out on a rope, so it could go flying across the street through the air as if possessed.

There were some houses that Evie thought were too scary to go to. There was a giant spider suspended over a door that Evie refused to walk under, even though she confided to Sara, “It’s not real.” Another person in a mask took her by surprise and she just froze in place, refusing to move until the person dangled some M&M’s for her. Sara and I agreed that M&Ms were probably the only thing that could have gotten her to go any closer.

But overall, Evie had a blast. My mom remarked that Evie would probably be playing “trick-or-treat” for quite some time to come. I think we didn’t do too bad either, considering we convinced her to stop in the middle and eat a banana. I doubt any of the other parents had such luck.

Other than that, it was a pretty quiet weekend. We dealt with the time change (though I never found a suitable hour to re-live) and we did some getting ready for the impeding winter, including packing our grill off to storage and removing the tomato cages from the garden. Yesterday was officially the last day for the garden, and I expect it will either be demolished immediately, or sit tantalizingly empty forever, just out of reach. It is possible that we could get another plot in some other garden elsewhere, but I am sort of drained about the whole garden thing, so we might just sit it out. We’ll see.

Finally, we found the time to hit up our favorite breakfast spot, Yolk. Everything was delicious, as usual. But the interesting thing was that my mom ordered the “South Beach” and it was something to see. People were literally turning their heads as it was carried through the restaurant. That might have been because it looked like perhaps my mom was the Don Corleone of the fruit mafia, and she had just ordered someone to bring her the head of the Chiquita Banana lady.

The South Beach consists of half of an entire pineapple, on its side, piled high with granola, strawberries, orange slices, and other fruit. This stuff is literally overflowing off the top and piling up on the surrounding plate. After my mom ate all she could, we cut off the top and bottom and still couldn’t fit it in the largest to-go box they had. It was worth ordering, just to see the thing.

Unfortunately, the picture I took on my camera phone doesn’t really do it justice, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

An exciting, yet relaxing weekend

/ Shane / 7 Comments

On one hand we didn’t really do all that much this weekend, and on the other hand we had a lot of exciting things going on.

The library has passes for all of the museum etc. around us, but they are mostly always gone, or at least the good ones are. Some of them are so completely always gone that one of the librarians confided that they were probably lost. But Sara managed to snag a pass to Adler Planetarium. I was already on board with going there for free, but that was before I knew that one of the exhibits right now was Sesame Street based. We did have to pay for that part, but it was well worth the money.  Evie was in 7th heaven, by which I mean she was happy as opposed to how you feel when someone forces you to watch that god-awful show. Although she was a little young, she was just so thrilled to be watching an “Elmo movie” on this huge screen, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. It was fun in the audience too seeing all the kids get so excited and like shouting out the answers to Big Bird’s questions, etc. and all the parents singing “twinkle twinkle little star” and just enjoying watching their kids. Needless to say, it was a big hit. I would recommend the show to anyone with little kids. There was more to see at the planetarium than I expected, but it was a little boring, especially for someone Evie’s age.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one little girl’s day, we also rode the train there and back. Since the train runs right by our house, Evie has always been into trains a little bit. This was the first time she ever rode on one and she was pretty excited. The train trip worked out perfectly and we definitely plan on using it a lot more in the future.

Probably the highlight of my day, was the (for lack of a better word) hipster-ish breakfast place that Sara found, Yolk. It was sooo super easy to get to from the train, and it was delicious. The best part? Instead of toast, you can substitute pancakes! “Yes, instead of my toast I would like to substitute a second breakfast.” I paid a little extra and upgraded mine to blackberry / banana pancakes. Evie approved. It was a tad pricey for breakfast, but I ate so much that I hardly ate anything else the rest of the day. Given it’s proximity to the Museum Campus, I’d imagine it could get busy in the summer, but it is huge and kid friendly.

So to top it all off, we decided to give Evie her first haircut! We only cut her bangs. They are always in her eyes and she would rather die than wear something in her hair to keep it back, like a barrette. She was really good for it. She didn’t exactly sit still, but she did okay. I think Sara’s not really happy with the job she did, but I think it looks fantastic, and not too short no matter what you might hear.

Evie has been saying a lot of funny words lately. Some of her favorites are perfect, excellent, and exactly. Like, “Hey Evie, how about when we’re done eating we go downstairs to play?” “Perfect!” Or “How are the grapes?” “Excellent.” Or “It looks like you’re putting your froggy to bed.” “Yes, exactly!”

But my favorite quote of the weekend? “And what else starts with the letter ‘R’?” “Arm!”

In other news, I started the dead and the gone and I have to say, with going on my second end of the world book in a row, all of this swine flu talk is coming at a bad time for me.